FRIED LOOKS GOOD, BUT PAST LEMONS TEMPER EXCITEMENT

The Padres passed on a college pitcher projected to have perhaps the shortest road to the majors among the top arms available in the first round of the amateur draft.

Hmmm.

Could be déjà vu, or could be that it’s time to give the Padres credit.

Don’t pretend you know which.

High school lefty Max Fried, selected seventh overall, could be the guy who throws the next no-hitter in Padres history (after post-op Cory Luebke throws the first one). Or it could be that all of us with perfect vision when looking back in time end up lamenting the team not taking Stanford’s Mark Appel with the seventh pick.

Even more than in football — exponentially so — the baseball draft is about throwing the dice … really far. Especially when talking about a high school pitcher. There is nothing even close to a guarantee this kid will even make it to the big leagues.

“It all comes down to risk and reward,” Padres assistant general manager Chad MacDonald said late Monday. “… We understand the risk. We think it’s less (with Fried) than with some high school arms.”

Just one-third of the Padres’ 21 first-round picks between 1999 and 2008 have appeared in the majors with the team.

Fried will likely be somewhere between Dave Winfield (fourth overall pick in 1974; in the Hall of Fame) and Matt Bush (first overall pick in 2004; in jail). We don’t know whether he will be the Justin Verlander we never got to appreciate (because he ended up throwing no-hitters in Detroit) or the Mark Phillips we never appreciated (because he topped out at Single-A).

“We’re tickled to death we got our lefty,” MacDonald said of Fried, who pitched his senior season at Harvard-Westlake High in the San Fernando Valley.

If Fried is three or four (or more) years from pitching at Petco, then the Padres believe he’s worth the wait.

In fact, they are showing a lot of patience at present.

The Padres took three high school pitchers among their four picks Monday, grabbing Oviedo, Fla., right-hander Zach Elfin with the 33rd overall pick and Walker Weickel out of Orlando at No. 55.

“We realize it’s a long road and it’s a risk,” MacDonald said. “But we also think highly of their upside.”

As for Appel, he lasted only one pick after the Padres, as the Pittsburgh Pirates chose him at No. 8.

Now, Appel is represented by Scott Boras, the uber-agent who is almost as well-known for teams avoiding at draft time as he is for getting his major league clients gigantic contracts. Most notably, perhaps, the Padres in 2004 decided to not take Stephen Drew or Jered Weaver with the No. 1 pick in favor of Bush.

The Padres did sign Boras client Austin Hedges last year after the high school catcher fell to the second round.

There was speculation Appel would go No. 1, and there was also talk he wanted more money than it might take to sign Fried.